


i wanna waste my youth on you

by lostandlonelybirds (RUNNFROMTHEAK)



Series: Dick Rare Pair Challenge 2021 [1]
Category: DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Wonder Woman (Comics)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Best Friends, Bruce Wayne is a Bad Parent, Dorks in Love, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, No Beta We Die Like I Would For Donna Troy, OTP Feels, Past Relationship(s), Platonic Cuddling, Pls know they're both bi bc i love that for them, Soft Dick Grayson, Soft Donna Troy, Temporary Character Death, Time Skips, gratuitous bed-sharing, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29552571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RUNNFROMTHEAK/pseuds/lostandlonelybirds
Summary: He spends weeks curled at her side, warding off the other Titans’ when they get too suffocating, ignoring Bruce’s passive-aggressive texts in favor of helping Donna walk around her room. He sleeps in her bed, head over her heart and limbs entangled with hers, and he thinks this is home.It’s home in the way Pop is home, in the way Alfred is home, in the way Bruce is home.Dick had been raised in the circus, flying across skies from Russia to Canada. He’d never planted roots in cities and towns and places. Sets and locations with random sentiments. He doesn’t even know what city he’d been born in, and it’s never bothered him. His roots run blood-deep, imprinted on loved ones carelessly and inevitably.He builds homes out of people, and Donna Troy is nothing if not his home.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Donna Troy
Series: Dick Rare Pair Challenge 2021 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2171163
Comments: 10
Kudos: 67
Collections: Dick Grayson Rare Pair Challenge





	i wanna waste my youth on you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [epistemology](https://archiveofourown.org/users/epistemology/gifts).



> they're soft okay?
> 
> for my lovely epi who deserves the world <3

He’s ten and she’s eleven and she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

It’s his first trip to the Watchtower and he’s as nervous as he’s ever been. He tries to imagine it like his first time on the trapeze, like he just has to _jump_ and _trust_ and things will turn out okay, but these are heroes. His heroes. Dick wants them to like them, and he’s heard the criticism about B having a partner his age, so he’s afraid they won’t like him. That they’ll convince Bruce to give him up, maybe just as Robin, or maybe as Robin and Dick. He can't take the loss of either face. They’re him, and he needs them both as much as he needs anything.

The meeting, as far as meeting with people who save the world on a daily basis while maintaining a dedicated aesthetic, isn’t that memorable. Dick’s already met Clark and Barry, and Oliver and Diana have come to Gotham on occasion to ask for help or offer it. The others are nice about it; Hal seems to think he’s the coolest thing ever and commandeers the title of ‘Uncle’ for himself in the hopes of getting some bat-wrangling tips (Dick, as a true agent of chaos, sends him a power point), but that’s not really the memorable part. Details, faces, niceties…not memorable.

What _is_ memorable is her.

Donna Hinckley Stacy Troy.

Her lips are glossy and smirking, hands on her hips with the same confidence he’s seen from Diana. She’s a head taller than him, bright and stunning, and he thinks he’s known her forever.

“Boy Wonder,” she says teasingly, hand outstretched for a handshake.

“Girl Wonder,” he counters just as lightly, feeling something shift into place as their skin touches.

He’s just met her, and she’s just met him, but they’re best friends, and Dick thinks it’s fate.

* * *

He’s eleven and she’s twelve and somehow, for some reason, they’re kissing.

Not for any particular reason or any particular purpose. Wally and Roy had been egging each other on about everything and nothing the way they always do, and somehow, when Donna joins them in Dick’s bedroom and takes her place next to him, the subject turns to kissing.

Wally claims he’s kissed at least ten girls (“Your aunt and mom don’t count, Kid Idiot!” Dick interjects) and Roy claims he’s kissed fifteen (“It doesn’t count if it’s out of pity, Harper,” Donna counters with a smirk).

Inevitably, their bickering calms enough for them to turn on Dick and Donna with the _question_ in their eyes and a stubbornness Dick resents. They have a silent staring contest for a few minutes before he relents with a roll of his eyes.

“None,” Dick says flatly.

“None?” Wally asks, stupefied.

“ _None_.”

“Me neither,” Donna offers with a shrug and a smile.

“ _How?!”_ Roy demands. “You’re both the beauty of this operation, and somehow Wallace has more game than _either of you_?”

“Hey!” Wally protests, but no one pays him any mind.

Dick flushes.

“I’ve been busy,” he mumbles. “What’s _your_ excuse Don?”

She gestures at the three of them.

“Look at my options, dweebs. I’m not one to settle.”

“ _Ouch_.”

Donna sticks her tongue out at Wally, and Roy’s eyes dart between them. Not with any discernable intent or meaning, just curiosity. And a little bit of bewilderment, which is to be expected.

They don’t kiss off a dare, or when a brown glass bottle aligns like stars between them. They don’t kiss that night, or the following morning. It’s a week later, and they’re in Star City and Roy’s ditched them to flirt with an assassin. They'd bought ice cream and are perched among the city’s skyline, legs dangling high above the rest of the world. _Perk of the job_ , he thinks, biting into a particularly gooey brownie chunk happily.

Donna’s ice cream is vanilla caramel swirl, and some of it slips onto her nose when she’s not paying attention. But that’s not quite right, because she _always_ pays attention, and her eyes are as dark as an evening sky watching him. Purposeful, knowing.

“Girl Blunder much?” he teases, and she gives a half smile, passing him a napkin.

“Wipe it off and kiss me,” she says, the same way she’d ask him to fetch her a sword. “That’s how this whole thing is supposed to work, right?”

Dick feels flutters in his stomach almost against his will, a tingle of anxiety surging through him.

“Maybe,” he says, wiping at the cream with the cheap brown paper. He’s closer than he realizes when the excuse of the napkin wears off, when they’re almost nose to nose and he can make out the light dustings of freckles under her eyes from too much sunlight. Her lashes are thick and shadowed on her cheeks, blinking slowly at him, and her tongue is a light pink when it darts across her glossed lips.

 _Right_ , he thinks, _okay_. Because they’re best friends and she means the world to him and apparently, she wants to kiss now.

And he kind of wants to kiss her too.

He leans in, feels her vanilla-scented breath warm his mouth, and their noses bump.

Donna laughs, a twinkling thing, and both their cheeks flush a bit in embarrassment.

When they both lean again, she tilts her head, and their lips meet in a tentative, soft peck. It’s a bit sticky, her gloss an unusual texture against him, her body slumped against his not unlike their sleepover cuddles or post-case embraces. Her arms wrap around his neck, and his ghost over her waist, and together, they breathe.

It’s almost unnatural how natural it feels, the slow slide of lips against lips, the careful sharing of air in a closed circuit, the soft sounds and warm feeling flooding his face through his lips.

“So,” she says quietly when they break apart. “That’s kissing.”

“Yep,” Dick says just as quiet, popping the p. “That it is.”

It hadn’t been fireworks or explosions the way romance novels described it (he’d read them for a _case_ , thank you very much). It had been comfort, warmth flooding him even in the aftereffects, like Alfred’s cookies after a long night or his Dya’s incense burning in their small trailer. It’s like home.

They don’t mention it again, storing it away like a secret among the twilight sky, only the wink of pollution-hidden stars left as a reminder.

* * *

He’s twelve and she’s thirteen and he’s breaking in her arms.

He’s just been fired, a few months after forming the Titans with her, and he has no clue what he’s supposed to do now. Robin’s a part of him, a vital component he can’t live without. He’s the heart of Dick’s broken self, the glue holding every piece together after the falls had shattered him. Robin is a legacy, a remembrance. A plaque he carries proudly to remember and to save.

To have it taken…to have it _stripped_ away…

Donna doesn’t make him talk about it, long used to his emotional constipation regarding Bruce. She shields him from Wally’s curiosity and Roy’s anger on his behalf (which is thoughtful, but not helpful) and offers herself as his own personal teddy bear. He sleeps in her room, surrounded by that unique blend of vanilla and olive oil and ocean breeze that is Donna, curled in her arms.

After all their time as friends, they co-exist pretty well. She’s still (infuriatingly) taller than him, so his head’s tucked under her chin. His right hand fists in the loose fabric of her oversized sleeping tee, and hers wraps tightly around his waist. One of her legs snakes between his, making him rest on top of her as she pulls him close enough to feel her pulse against his skin. It’s the most grounding thing in the world, and he knows her skin and pulse better than he knows his own.

“Bruce will come around,” she murmurs into his messy hair, free hand rubbing soothing circles on the small of his back.

Dick breathes her in, feels every inch of him aligned with her, and is content. Perfectly content. Donna makes him feel at peace.

“Okay,” he says, because she never lies to him.

If Donna Troy says things will be okay, they will. Universe be damned.

* * *

(When he’s thirteen and she’s fourteen things don’t change at all, stagnate under the scrutiny of Slade Wilson, the endless attempts at recruitment and threats of apprenticeship. Things don’t change when she blushes at Roy before punching him, or when Dick kisses Wally out of sheer curiosity. They don’t, and that’s okay, because they’re them and them is perfect.)

* * *

He’s fourteen and she’s fifteen and he’s scared out of his mind.

She’s wrapped in layers of bandages, luminous skin paler than normal, silken tresses dull and limp against the medical bed. His fingers are threaded with hers, thumb resting against her pulse just so he knows it’s still there. She’s taken too many hits for him. For all of them.

It’s not the first time Donna’s been injured, but it’s the _most_ she’s been injured, and Dick’s terrified because he could have lost her. He could have _lost_ her, and there’s not a word in any of the languages he knows adequate to describe the pain he feels knowing that.

“I love you, Donna.” He murmurs at her temple, lips soft against the cotton-covered stitches he finds there.

Donna squeezes his hand, lips quirked in a half-smile.

“Love you too, Boy Blunder.”

He snorts at that, resting his eyes against her shoulder. She lifts the hand he’s not holding to cradle him, a familiar gesture that makes him _ache_.

“You can’t do this,” he says in a watery voice, hating the powerlessness in it. In his inability to protect her. In his inability to protect his parents. “You can’t—”

She shakes her head, pulling him closer, warm as a hearth and smelling like his home.

“Anything for you.”

“Don—”

“ _Anything_.”

And she means it, means it in a way he wholly exhibits, reflects back at her. He spends weeks curled at her side, warding off the other Titans’ when they get too suffocating, ignoring Bruce’s passive-aggressive texts in favor of helping Donna walk around her room. He sleeps in her bed, head over her heart and limbs entangled with hers, and he thinks this is home.

It’s home in the way Pop is home, in the way Alfred is home, in the way Bruce is home.

Dick had been raised in the circus, flying across skies from Russia to Canada. He’d never planted roots in cities and towns and places. Sets and locations with random sentiments. He doesn’t even know what city he’d been born in, and it’s never bothered him. His roots run blood-deep, imprinted on loved ones carelessly and inevitably.

He builds homes out of people, and Donna Troy is nothing if not his home.

* * *

He’s fifteen and she’s sixteen and things aren’t right between them. Aren’t _natural_ and _effortless_ and _easy as breathing_ , the way they always had been before. There are depths to every conversation, layers in their eyes neither is willing to voice or investigate, but it hovers. It sits, stagnate, heavy, oppressing. They’re both suffocating, and it shouldn’t be surprising that they find comfort in other people but it _is_.

Koriand’r reminds him of the sun in the way Donna reminds him of a supernova. She’s blinding, dangerous, and has a pull to her he can’t resist. Donna prods him into it, pokes at him and says _yes_ and _it’s okay_ and _go for it_ because she’s always like that. She’s always been like that.

So he presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth and asks Kori on a date. He watches Roy confess to Donna and pull her into an ambush not unlike Kori’s first greeting.

So they date. Other people, wide eyes and teasing smiles over their partner’s shoulders.

They _want_ and they _ache_ but it’s a complicated tangle, tight around both of them, and neither of them is quite ready to decipher it. To take the time and work through everything at last, because they don’t know what it is they’d find. Not really.

There isn’t jealousy really, because Donna knows Kori can’t ever take the place she has. The unique corner she’s carved out in Dick’s heart and claimed as her own. There isn’t jealousy really, because Dick knows Roy can’t ever be what Dick is to Donna. He can’t lie awake and hear her faint murmurings of fire and death, of Diana saving her the way Bruce had saved Dick. Because Roy can’t lay on a rooftop at 2 am in Gotham and stare up at where the constellations are _supposed_ to be and hear the stories for what they were meant to be and what Donna teases him with. Can’t feel the wink of stars a reminder of that quiet night in Star City. He wasn’t Donna’s first kiss like Dick was, and Kori isn’t Dick’s first kiss like Donna was.

It’s not perfect. It doesn’t feel natural, but it’s okay.

Their bond is soul-deep, essentially intertwined with their DNA. A vital melding of persons that can’t be undone, and they wouldn’t have it any other way. It goes beyond romance and sex and desires. Beyond friendship.

It is what it is, and what it is, is everything.

And that’s good enough for both of them for now.

* * *

He’s sixteen and she’s seventeen and he feels as broken as the day his parents fell.

“I can’t go back,” he murmurs into her hair. They’re the same height at last, and Dick hadn’t even noticed it until now because of Bruce and Gotham and Robin and the neve ending _fights_ about everything and nothing every day all day. “It’s not my home anymore. God, Don you should’ve seen his face. He looked…he looked so _disappointed_. In me.”

Her nails card through his hair gently, lips resting on his nape naturally. Comfortably. He can feel her jaw clench against his skin, can feel the calming breath she takes as she forces her face to relax.

It’s the most comforting thing he’s had since the Joker shot him and everything went to Hell.

“You deserve better, Dickie,” she says just as soft, careful of breaking that effortless intimacy with harsh truths. “Bruce…what he did was _wrong_. You don’t treat family the way he’s treating you.”

Her lips twist in distaste, as they always tend to when Bruce comes up.

“He doesn’t owe me a family. He’s done more than most people would.”

Bruce _had_ played at being dad-like when Dick was younger. He’d gone to every academic award ceremony and math team competition without protest, eager and smiling that only-for-Dick-and-Alfred smile. He’d consoled him late at night when nightmares had him reaching for his parents, falling and twisting like ribbon in the air as they unraveled entirely and hit the ground. He’d tolerated Dick, more than Juvie had, and Dick shouldn’t have _hoped_ for more. Shouldn’t have cared about permeance.

Coming from anyone else, Dick wouldn’t take this. Wouldn’t _hear_ of it. Wouldn’t open up like this or accept the tactile comfort he _needs_ so desperately.

Donna sighs against him, tugging him to her until her breasts are flush against his back. Her free arm loops around his waist, and he intertwines their fingers together to ground himself.

“After the fire,” Donna starts, something thick and heavy in her voice. She doesn’t like talking about it any more than Dick likes talking about that final act. That life-changing fall. “I had nothing. I had no one. I felt so… _angry_ at the world. Didn’t trust anyone. Then, Diana found me. She took me in, made me her sister, gave me a family and taught me to fill the void that fire left in my life with warmth and kindness and love. She didn’t _owe_ me that, but she offered it. Because that’s what love is. That’s what I needed, and she saw it, so she saved me.”

Dick leans into her, head tilted up and resting on her shoulder.

“I know.”

Donna shakes her head.

“No, you’re not seeing what I’m saying. Bruce loves you, but he won’t _give_ the way you’re supposed to give. His love isn’t ruled by warmth, not entirely, it’s ruled by logic and convenience and standards. You’re constantly pushing yourself past every breaking point just to please him, just to try and make him proud of you, and you _shouldn’t have to_. You almost died a few days ago, and rather than comfort you or care about _your_ feelings he cut you out to keep himself safe. Because _Hera forbid_ he admit to caring or show you an ounce of affection. Dick, you _deserve_ to be loved and know it. Bruce doesn’t deserve you, and you don’t owe him a goddamn _thing_.”

Her words aren’t a magic fix-all, but they’re stitches. They sew him up and give him room to heal, and her embrace is a medical cream he needs like oxygen. Piece by piece she puts him back together, tangled in her silk sheets without any need for more. The question of them is pushed aside, despite the lack of Kori and the lack of Roy and the closeness and warmth.

Donna doesn’t cure him, but she helps him in a way no one else could or would. He becomes Nightwing at her side, and she becomes Troia at his.

Together, forever, inseparable.

Quiet and perfect in her warm sheets, hearts aligned like they always have and always will. Them is inevitable, and neither of them is in a real rush.

* * *

(When they are seventeen and eighteen and nineteen and twenty, mistakes are made. There’s Mirage and a secret husband and an engagement. There’s a maybe-almost with Wally, and a dalliance with Roy again, and then Dick makes a mistake with Slade and they _all_ regret it. There are growing pains and hormones and new identities and trauma, but they come out on top enough for things to be okay. For everything to not be dark and broken and lost, because she punches Roy and calls them all idiots when Mirage happens. Because she stands by him when he needs her and when he shouldn’t need her, and he does the same when her nightmares crop up.

Because relationships they have are passing ships in an endless sea, and what they have is eternal.)

* * *

He stops counting in years when he turns nineteen, because it all blends together.

Blüdhaven and Barbara and Catalina and Blockbuster.

Jason and Joker and Tim.

Donna.

Blüdhaven again, crater-being and almost his death.

Jason back, Donna not far behind.

Steph, gone like Jason.

Bruce and Damian and Batman.

Bruce back.

The circus. The Court.

Damian…

People walk in and out of his life on constant rotation, and all the pain adopts a muted quality in the wake of that terrible loss when Donna’s eyes leak and never stop. There are thousands of indistinguishable moments in between the past and the present, and he can’t sort them into years the way he used to. They’re all shaded in grey even after Donna comes back, after Jason and Bruce and Damian and countless others come _back_ , because you can’t unlearn grief.

You can’t rewire that pain, make your synapses stop the instant connection to the feeling of a world without them just because they’re back. The memory, the pain-ridden circuit built by the masochistic mound of plasticity known as the human brain, doesn’t come with an off switch or a self-destruct button. Dick never forgets what it’s like to lose people, not even when he gets them back, and he never forgets what life sans Donna Troy is like.

Not even when she’s staring at him with that familiar concern, telling him he hasn’t slept in x days. He has to take her pulse whenever they’re together to make sure it’s not a bittersweet hallucination, resting his head over it when they curl together the way they always have. He steals her sweats and she steals his hoodies, and it’s a fair exchange.

He starts counting in years again when he dies for the second time.

When he’s twenty-five and Donna’s twenty-six she takes him with her in a whirl of ozone and laser eyes.

When he’s twenty-seven and she’s twenty-eight he goes alone, Bruce and Selina as witnesses, his heart a ticking time bomb in the most literal way.

It doesn’t hurt as much the second time. A blip with an aftertaste of trauma, but not the kind that blurs.

He doesn’t understand, so he counts.

* * *

He’s twenty-eight and she’s twenty-nine and she’s learned what he can’t unlearn in the most painful way possible.

“I had to,” he says. “Bruce,” he says.

She doesn’t ask questions. She doesn’t need to. He wonders if the bruises are as noticeable as they feel even after all this time, even after healing in the physical sense rather than the emotional sense. If she can see his broken will like a frayed string between them. She probably can. She probably sees it better than him.

Donna doesn’t hit him like Jason had. She doesn’t berate him like Barbara had. She doesn’t glare down at him like Tim had. She doesn’t launch herself like Damian had either.

Her fingers intertwine with his as she welcomes him inside, strips him down to his boxers and pulls him under her covers right next to her. One of her legs sits between his and she lays across him, her head over his heartbeat, hair splayed across his bare chest. She doesn’t let go or let him let go, and neither of them need words anymore (if they ever had).

Two souls in a quiet apartment in a warm bed. Like coming home.

* * *

He’s twenty-eight and she’s twenty-nine and it’s only been a month since he came back and she didn’t let him go. They live together unofficially in her New York apartment, with occasional trips to Gotham the only break in it. She always comes with him as a part of their silent agreement to never be apart again, and Damian warms to her in a way he never warmed to Babs.

There’s only a small flicker of uncertainty in their domesticity, that undercurrent of more that’s existed since the concept of _more_ became a tangible thing.

They share a bank account full of photographer funds and spy money. They share a dresser and a closet and hideouts. They share a bed, every night, and they share nightmares of a loss they both know.

Sometimes it’s fire and nothingness. Sometimes it’s circus lights and burning rope.

Sometimes it’s ozone and laser eyes, and sometimes it’s a bomb and a hand.

They talk about it when they wake, quiet moments in the dark. Confessions about everything and nothing. Things they already knew and things they didn’t. Everything from the way Jason’s hair looks after a hate fuck with Kyle to the feeling of falling apart in a Blüdhaven downpour.

It’s not as hard as talking to other people, because talking to Donna’s a bit like talking to himself. She’s home and him wrapped in one, another half he’s had for what feels like forever.

It’s only been a month, but he’s wanted her for years, and kissing her is as natural as breathing, so one day he just _does_.

She tastes like chamomile tea and vanilla gloss, and her red lipstick smudges when she kisses back. They’re in costume, and the bad guy is unconscious and chained to a pipe, and she’d been mid-joke, and neither of them could care any less.

“So,” he says. “That’s kissing.”

Her eyes sparkle, and she doesn’t need to echo his words back for him to know she knows. Instead, she pulls him back in, and it’s perfect.

He’s home.

**Author's Note:**

> thoughts?


End file.
